Eileen Barker

Eileen Vartan Barker OBE, (born 21 April 1938, Edinburgh, UK) is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics (LSE), and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights. She is the chairperson and founder of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and has written studies about groups she defines as cults and new religious movements (NRMs).

Academic career

She has been involved with the LSE's sociology department, where she received her PhD, since 1970.

In 1988, she was engaged in research on the preservation of cultural identity in the Armenian diaspora. In the same year she founded the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM), with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury and financial help from the British Home Office.

Eileen Barker has held numerous positions of leadership in the academic study of religion. She was Chairperson of the British Sociological Association's Study Group for the Sociology of Religion from 1985 to 1990, President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion from 1991 to 1993 (the first non-American to hold that office), and President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion from 2001 to 2002.